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Top Three Takeaways – November 16th, 2021
- Parents are skeptics. When it comes to child COVID-19 vaccinations – it's clear parents are skeptics. Last month prior to rollout of vaccinations for children between the ages of 5-11, only 27% of parents of young children indicated they were eager to have their young children vaccinated against COVID-19. New polling suggests more of the same today. Here in Florida, it’s safe to say few parents are rushing to be first in line to have their young children vaccinated. According to the state’s weekly update,only 3% of Florida’s near 1.7 million eligible children were vaccinated against COVID-19 in the first week. To put it another way, the state obtained 90,000 vaccine doses for last week which was widely panned as being too few in numerous news media outlets. As usual, they were wrong. Only about 50,000 were used. Few parents of young children in Florida are quick to want to have their children immunized and for good reason. As I recently demonstrated...it’s absurd we’re even having this conversation. A minimum of three times as many children have died of pneumonia during the pandemic as have died from COVID-19. Has the fear of pneumonia triggered a response that’s at least three times the reaction that’s been applied by the medical establishment to COVID-19 vaccinations for young children? Can you say hype, hype and more hype? In fact, as it applies to children almost any malady you can think of has as good or better chance of being more severe for children than COVID-19. The idea of immunizing them for their perceived benefit is absurd by any reasonable measure. The only reason to have a young child immunized, unless they’re specifically at risk, is out of fear of infection of you, as the parent, as opposed to them as the child. Which, if the vaccines are to be effective for the parents, wouldn’t be necessary would they? So yes, Florida’s parents are clearly skeptical of these child vaccinations, as the data suggests they should be. Speaking of something we should all be skeptical of...
- Over 1.6 million Floridians potentially losing their jobs. That’s the high-end estimate of how many Floridians could potentially lose their jobs should the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccination mandate go through. As I’ve discussed the potential impact of the mandate on Florida’s workforce, I’ve presented the most conservative number of people impacted possible – for the purpose of ensuring I’m not engaged in hyperbole. In today’s Q&A I’m asked about how I arrived at the number. As I meticulously broke down the process something dawned on me. Providing the most conservative number possible doesn’t really tell the story of the view of the possible. Sure, over a half-million Floridians or 5% of Florida’s total workforce, potentially being fired from employers on January 4th because they’ve not been vaccinated against COVID-19 is a big deal; but the high-end of the range – if the mandate were in place right now perhaps tells an even more instructive story. 1.68 million Floridians, or 16% of Florida’s total workforce, currently work for private employers with 100 or more employees who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19. Think the supply chain is a mess and inflation is brutal right now? What do you think happens if anywhere close to 10% of Florida’s workforce goes away? This further illustrates the importance of what’s happening right now in Tallahassee in this week’s special session aimed at immunizing Florida’s workforce against forced immunizations that’d cripple our economy in addition to potentially 1.6 million careers. That’s what Governor DeSantis is fighting to protect this week. And consider, Florida’s Democrats bent on opposing this effort, are fighting for those Floridians to be fired and for your life to become worse and more expensive. That’s not hyperbole. Think about this pragmatically. That’s quite literally what they’re fighting for.
- Irony. Joe Biden can’t win for losing. So, he waited a week and a half to hold a signing ceremony for the so-called bi-partisan infrastructure plan so that Nancy Pelosi, who was traveling internationally, and company,would be on hand for the event. It took a backseat to the closing arguments of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial yesterday. That’s Joe Biden’s presidency in a nutshell. One question you never hear posed under this administration is if you’re tired of winning yet. Remember the good ole’ days when tweets were the biggest complaint people had?